Children's identification of graphic symbols representing four basic emotions : comparison of Afrikaans-speaking and Sepedi-speaking children

Abstract

PURPOSE : Speech language pathologists recommend graphic symbols for AAC users to facilitate communication, including labelling and expressing emotions. The purpose of the current study was to describe and compare how 5- to 6-year-old Afrikaans- and Sepedi-speaking children identify and choose graphic symbols to depict four basic emotions, specifically happy, sad, afraid, and angry. METHOD : Ninety participants were asked to select the graphic symbol from a 16-matrix communication overlay that would represent the emotion in response to 24 vignettes. RESULTS : The results of the t-tests indicated that the differences between the two groups‟ selection of target symbols to represent the four emotions are statistically significant. CONCLUSIONS : The results of the study indicate that children from different language groups may not perceive graphic symbols in the same way. The Afrikaans-speaking participants more often chose target symbols to represent target basic emotions than did the Sepedi-speaking participants. The most preferred symbols per emotion were identified and these different symbols were analysed in terms of facial features that distinguish them.